Protesters storm U.S. Embassy in Cairo

First of all, the veiled and not so veiled racism on here always disgusts me. Especially when people who don't have a clue talk about the "Muslim Street." I know people in Egypt. They are as level-headed as any American I know. Not everyone in Egypt is storming an embassy right now. Things are out of control there, and there is an element of the country that is disaffected. Poverty and oppression tend to lead to bad behavior. People get riled up. Egypt lived under oppression -- U.S. backed oppression -- for decades. Now we are seeing blowback from the backing of a dictator who was hated. We single-handedly supported it with boatloads of money that kept him in business, and the people there know it. To act like that isn't the backdrop in this story, and that the poor U.S. is having its embassy attacked for no reason by a bunch of savages is silly. We are reaping what we sowed.

But it does beg one question.

Egypt receives the second most U.S. aid from the U.S -- after Israel. To the tune of $1.5 trillion a year. That is about the size of our budget deficit. It's insane.

I have no clue what we are doing, or why. I have no idea why we pursue these foreign policies that meddle in others' affairs and support dictators, as we did in Egypt, which then set up dire situations of blowback when things shift toward radicals who are resentful toward the U.S. People didn't spontaneously decide to storm the embassy in Tehran in 1979. Our support of the Shah led to the radicalization of the country when he fell, and the fact that we had propped him up for decades was not forgotten.

Why don't we ever learn?

If it was me, I'd pull our embassy, take that ridiculous $1.5 trillion handout we are giving to Egypt every year with it (when we are putting ourselves in massive debt to give it!), and leave behind a message that they are on their own -- now and in the future.

That is a win-win, and we are not doing more to create the future resentment that leads to embassies being stormed.

 

It is trillion. And yes, it is mostly "military" aid.

One-third of American foreign aid goes to Israel and Egypt. Israel gets about $3.2 trillion a year. Egypt gets about $1.5 trillion a year.

It is absolutely insane given our fiscal situation.

And in the case of Egypt, in which we propped up a dictator with that money for years, and we are now facing an angry population because of it, we are left trying to buy off a bunch of radicalized people who are now pissed off and not going to forget anytime soon that we were the dickheads that single-handedly kept Mubarak in power. We should get the fuck out and learn from the same mistake we have been making for 100 years. It's especially salient today, because we are destroying ourselves fiscally, even as we hand out that kind of money to Egypt (Moody's announced yesterday that the U.S. is in danger of losing its investment-grade status by next year).

 

Az, I am positive about this. It is TRILLION.

http://foreignassistance.gov/CountryIntro.aspx

2013 number gives requested aid for 2011. Hover over Egypt. It was $1,563,274,000.

Basically our budget deficit that year.